


One Eon Later

by MAXiMINalist



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: 30 Years After the Liberation of Lothal, Aging, Amnesia?, Before The Sequel Trilogy, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, One-sided pining, Sexual Tension, that grows into mutual pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26170771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MAXiMINalist/pseuds/MAXiMINalist
Summary: An entity that uncannily resembles Kanan Jarrus surfaces 30 years after Hera Syndulla witnesses the Lothal fires consume her Jedi. He calls himself “Dume.”This Lothalian wanderer doesn't count on being found and taken in by this odd and warm family on Lothal that includes a Jedi who stares at him with sadness, a famed Twi'lek pilot who can't tear her eyes away from him, the half-Twi'lek son of the pilot who regards him with ambivalence, and the three grandchildren of the son who gaze in awe of him.
Relationships: Hera Syndulla & Jacen Syndulla, Jacen Syndulla X Unseen OC, Kanan Jarrus & Hera Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla, kanera - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23
Collections: Kanera Week 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gondalsqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gondalsqueen/gifts).



> Originally posted in (unfinished) segments on [my Tumblr](https://spaceasianmillennial.tumblr.com). It will probably continue on Tumblr before it continues here.

“I’m dreaming.”

It was benign. Yet those tiny words made her shudder. Kaleb had been sleepwalking or wandering on her night walks again. She was always the restless one. The shape of a child, her braids shivering in the wind, stood at the balcony glazing into the sparsity of Lothal.

“You can sleep with me, little Luv.” 

“Ok, grandma.” 

The tiny child closed the balcony door and then sprung herself on bed, then curled up to her chest. 

“Sweetie.”

The child looked at her with those teal eyes.

“Yes, Grandma?”

The grandmother thought she might offer a story, but she was too exhausted. Really, she wanted her granddaughter to look at her with those eyes and become lost once again.

“Sleep well. We don’t want you tired for the celebration tomorrow.” Seeing those eyes made her ache for him even more. She sang a Rylothian lullaby. Soon, those tiny eyes, stubborn with restlessness, fluttered to sleep. She held the child tight to her chest as a girl clutches a doll beneath the storm of bombs. Her child winced and muttered and the grandmother reminded herself not to suffocate the child.

The house bordered between the city and the sparse outskirts. She would have been aghast at the idea of being grounded. She always fancied just vanishing into the stars if she ever reached retirement. The Ghost was parked outside, a majestic sight, not quite retired but has seen fewer days since the war.

The house was spacier than the Ghost. It contained bedrooms, for Jacen and his wife, for her three granddaughters, and for Ezra Bridger, and empty rooms for old family members. Ezra had been reclusive and laying low, keeping his guardianship of Lothal in silence, and he was Hera’s most permanent house companion when Jacen and his family were gone--"reparations for abandoning us on Lothal," she half-joked to her son. 

Her son, Jacen, had made his home–-and cause-–in the independent Ryloth since he married a Twi’lek woman (at a fairly young age that she was surprised and relieved his marriage had been strong). He always did his old “gran Cham”–-or “great-gran Cham” the little ones called him-–quite proud.

On the walls hung flat-holo frames, flashing her achievements and milestones, Lothal, Ryloth, Endor, her son, her son’s wedding, and all the relief and love and happiness that had unraveled across the years, which offered solace to the news and whispers of chaos elsewhere in the galaxy.

_If only he lived to share it with me. If only he lived to share the anxiety with me._

But there was no exact image of the man in the house. He existed if you asked her, or if the name was spoken, when she poured out tales of him over her granddaughters’ bedside, or from the way she stroked dangling piece from the kalikori memorabilia. She rather she had the image of him locked in her head. She would look into Jacen’s and her granddaughters’ eyes if she wanted to see him again.

Sometimes she would stare from the balcony at the stars, to the direction of the vanquished temple, or the direction of the Lothal communication tower where a family mural resided, looking for his shape.

A lothwolf howled in the distance and the vibrations made her drift off.

* * *

The billowing howl shook a man awake. He took a moment to smooth the cushion of grass, straighten the rolled-up cloth as his pillow.

The Lothal night air cooled his skin. He picked a straw out of his beard, combed out an idle beetle from his hair, and stretched out, giving a mighty warm yawn. 

It could hear the pitter-patter of a lothwolf and the ruffling of fur. _Now where is your pack?_ He wanted to ask this lothwolf.

He shifted his body to assume a more comfortable position that didn’t crack his back. He knew in the morning he had to go to the city to trade in some tea leaves. It was also going to be Liberation Day. He was looking forward to it as much as he resented it.


	2. Stranger

Every morning on that day, there was a gathering at the communication tower before a painted mural. It shined with a family of six.

Sabine Wren had her helmet resting underneath her arm as she proudly nodded at the mural, her tribute to her family. Her hair and beskar armor never lost the splatters of color, which simply changed and renewed themselves over the years under her artistic strokes. Whenever in public, she now wore her helmet with respect to the reformed Mandalorian Creed. At first, to Hera, it seemed that the terrors on Mandalore drove her to shrink from view, although Hera understood that the cultural devastation simply forced a change of being and visibility for her and many other Mandalorians in the public eye.

Ezra, garbed in Lothal civilian clothing, did not have much to say. He had plenty of smiles to offer, to civilians who knew who he was and were sworn to a collective secrecy about his presence here, especially by survivors who felt a deep debt to him. But Hera could see his furtive glances, always on guard, as he stroked his beard. He was so much like him.

Zeb Orrelios had gotten larger and his back more arched and didn’t lose that distinctive Lasat scent that earned him some teasing. His companion, a former Imperial who made penance his lifelong mission, was elsewhere, spending his past decades still leading Lasats to the homeland.

All the present souls exchanged memories of victories and losses, they talked so much that the littlest one climbed herself onto the dome of the chittering astromech for a nap. But two hands plucked her off. She squirmed. Her father’s voice told her “Rhea, this is your grandfather” and held her before the mural. She blinked at the man in the mural and then let out a yawn. 

Jacen Syndulla chuckled as he gathered Rhea to his arms. She had fallen asleep by then. He pressed his lips to her tiny lekku. Hera heard him whisper, "Grandmother got so many more stories about him for you." Other than his braided jade hair and the sandy complexion of his grandfather splotched with his mother's emerald shade, he grew into his own Kanan Jarrus, a Kanan Jarrus that carried in his arms a life of domesticity that perhaps he once dreamed of.

Dawn, who came out 8 minutes after Kaleb, muttered boredly, “He's sooooo serious.” It wasn't that her grandfather was a disinteresting figure. Far from it. It was that she was exhausted of the rituals of seeing a painted man, a man she has seen in Chopper's holos, she never met and being expected to feel something of it. 

Kaleb remarked, perhaps a bit defensively, “He looks just like me.” She never grew tired of watching this man in Chopper's holo, swinging her arms like a Jedi, picking up a stick and whipping it like a saber, preferring the ghostly recordings of this man over Master Bridger's instructions. She was the only daughter of Jacen with a head of hair, which was braided to stand in for lekku. She ruffled her braids, imaging that her grandfather would have braided her hair, fancying too what he could have looked like if she were to braid his hair like she braided her father's.

Eyeing the painted man who rested his fingers on her painted counterpart’s shoulder, Hera laid her hands on Kaleb’s shoulder and squeezed it, a transfer of affirmation.

* * *

The revelry filled his ears with comfort as much as it rattled him. It was one of the few times he didn’t mind crowds, or rather, they were worth traversing through on this day. He was adept enough to maneuver through but rubbing bodies against people and kids, shaking off the confetti, and navigating the blast of street firecrackers were an annoying inevitability. Kids were fine from a distance, but close up they were squirmy and loud nuisances and he personally wanted to whup the back of parents' heads if he had the gall. 

After navigating a sea of noise and bodies, he headed to his usual stall, recognizing the scents. He slapped down a sack of leaves and held his palm out for credits.

* * *

She was laughing with her granddaughters among the Lothalians and the tourists. Chopper was twisting and chittering and chirping binary. The youngest, little Rhea, was sprawled on Chopper’s dome, riding him. She chirped back at him.

Through the crowd, she might have spied him. Not quite him, just a man sporting long hair and beard, with a tight grimace. 

Was she dreaming? It was not the first time she fancied seeing a stranger and thinking it might be him. Some strangers had a shape like his and it can fool her eyes and quake her memories. But this man, his features burrowed in his beard and long hair, didn’t quite have Kanan’s shape or his youth. But somehow she recognized him in this stranger, who was now pocketing some credits.

But suddenly, something grainy fell on her lips. Dawn was pounding a berry cake against her lips. She chuckled as she accepted the heavy sweetness onto her taste buds. When her thoughts returned to the stranger to look again, he had vanished. She shook her head. She always felt him, always fancied he was brushing her shoulder. That was enough. Of course she was going to see him everywhere that day. This wasn't new.

Then she did feel something on her shoulder. Her heart leapt. It was Ezra. His eyes stern with not alertness but bewilderment, his eyes scanning into the crowd and she wondered if he sensed their shared pain. Perhaps he saw the ghost too. 


	3. Siren

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaleb follows a siren call.

A wolf bellowed a distant howl, so far yet so potent it quaked the bedroom. Hera listened. She kept thinking about the ghost in the crowd on Liberation Day. The ghost that had his eyes and the hypothetical shape he could have aged into. The ghost that Ezra Bridger might have seen with her. Her hands and nails closed on the coarse fabric of the Rylothian blanket, a habit whenever she had one of those dreams of flares flying or those dancing flames.

She yanked the covers over her face. When she drifted off, she was small again, as high as her mother’s waist. Her mother was next to her, face buried in the Ryloth soil, muttering prayers to the Gods. Hera, Small Hera, was so bored, exhausted of the prayers that skinned her knees and scratched her face rather than answered her wishes. The Gods never stopped the distant explosions. Still, Small Hera prayed hard, bowed low, and out of her lips spilled his name. Her mother was praying for the war to end. Small Hera prayed for Kanan Jarrus to come home.

* * *

Kaleb was dying to see a Lothwolf up close. She had always begged her father, grandmother, and Ezra to go see them, up close because she wanted to pet them. She had seen their packs sprinting from the distance, scampering across the Lothal fields. She marveled at Sabine’s paintings of them. Her grandmother and Ezra told her that Lothwolves were friends to the land, although they were not to be approached closely. “Lothwolves approach you. Otherwise, you’re the one bothering them.” But this confused Kaleb. In the stories, _their_ stories, those Lothwolves seemed fairly friendly around them, and comfortable with them in Sabine’s mural.

At the siren of its howl, she tiptoed out of bed, careful not to wake her twin and the younger sister, and stole down the stairs. Her grandmother said she was so nimble and quiet that she remarked to her father, “Kaleb would make a great spy.” She smirked. She was going to test her grandmother’s words.

She found herself in the cool night air. She could have sworn she heard something shifting, like the scratch of shoes, as if someone had detected her escapade. She froze and waited. After ascertaining that no one was awake, she made a beeline for the fields, into the fog of Lothal. The howls pulled her forth, like the siren song of the Star Spirits in the tales. The breeze was intoxicating and the faster she ran, the more soothing it felt.

But when the fog cleared and she noticed her exhaustion for the length she jogged, she could not see the city. She did not see her grandmother’s house. The Ghost was gone. She was lost. In a panic, she scrambled out in the plains, calling for her father, her grandmother, for Ezra.

She could hear the skittering of Lothwolves, but she wasn’t so mesmerized now. She was frightened and shivering. Why did this have to be the night she chose to wander? Why did this night had to call to her? Now the potential consequences were sinking in. Her father would scold her. And now she really wasn’t ever going to see a Lothwolf up close.

She shook when a noise emitted from the grass. It was a pearly white Lothcat meowing at her. A creature this tiny and benign offered some relief. She decided she would make her way home, hopefully jump back into bed before anyone detected she was gone.

“Well, what are you doing on this land?”

She flinched. A tall shape a few yards away was staring at her.

“Where are your parents?” The stranger’s voice was thick with an unidentifiable accent.

She could not see the man’s face but she shivered because the reproach cut through her.

Then he asked her again, his voice softening, “Where are you parents?“

She was too ashamed to utter an answer.

* * *

What was this child doing out there in the night? What were they looking for? He deduced that they were likely not a stray. The way they froze, they had the behavior of knowing a caretaker. It was just his luck that he was stuck with some random kid, some random responsibility Lothal decided to thrust upon him.

“You ran away from home?”

He could hear the wave of her head.

He held out his hand. She did not take it. 

“Show me where your home is.“

He withdrew his hands.

“Will they come looking for you?”

He heard the wave of their head.

“Yes or no.”

Another wave of their head. It seemed to be a yes, but he shouldn’t assume.

“I am blind. Please say it aloud. Yes or no.”

A “yes” squeaked out.

He simply dropped himself to the grass, whipped out some firewood from the knapsack attached to his back.

“Guess you’re my trouble for the night. I’ll just wait with you then. I hope your family doesn’t take too long.”

* * *

She knew her family would find her sooner or later. Still the consequences scared her. She wanted to just leave this stranger and sneak back to bed. But there was something about this stranger.

He was methodically rubbing stones together to emit sparks. When the spark flickered from the wood, the firelight spread across his heavily bearded face and the whites of his eyes, all the trepidation faded into curiosity and a touch of disbelief. 


	4. Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who is this stranger with whitened blue eyes?

Had she ever met this man in a crowd before? He appeared local to Lothal. He was mildly untidy, dirt on his tunic and cloak but he did not have the visage of one of those panhandlers. She didn’t have much interaction with humans since they were not much of a presence on Ryloth–-“for your generation, it was a huge favor your grandfather drove off the Imperials,” her father told her.

Upon closer inspection, when the firelight dance across his face, she could catch the whites of his eyes, the suggestion of blue hues. A scrape jagged across his face.

He set the kettle above the fire. He removed and uncapped a tin cylinder. Little dark mossy mass fell from it and into a cup.

“I would offer you tea. But one, strangers offering a kid a drink is odd. And two, kids don’t ever appreciate tea.” He had an accent that wasn’t so distinguishable, but a dash familiar. She had heard other Lothalians, mostly elders, carry an edge of his inflection.

She observed the way this stranger boiled the water, poured it into his cup, and the air steamed with its bitter aroma. He held his tea to his nostrils, savoring the steam, before he took a sip.

“What are you looking at child?”

She didn’t answer. There was a rule about talking to strangers.

“Never seen a blind person before?”

She didn’t know how much time had passed when she saw the lights and the specks of her family, the heads of her father and Ezra, and the flying lekku of her grandmother, on a transport, gaining size and gaining presence in her heart. She could sense them as much as she could sense their turmoil.

“Those are your guardians, I hope.”

Kaleb did not want to leave so soon. She wanted to stare into this stranger’s eyes. She wanted to tell her father something. She remained so fixated on this stranger’s eyes that she barely moved when she heard her father’s boots hit the dirt. 

“I am assuming this kid is yours. Take her off my hands.”

“Kaleb!” Her father’s arms wrapped around her. He rose to meet the stranger.

Without hesitation, he asked the stranger. “Did you find her?” 

“She ran into me and took up my space and time,” he grumbled. 

“Kaleb, why did you run off?”

“Daddy.” She wanted to explain that feeling, the odd feeling that lured her into the night and the fog.

“Love, I’m not mad, but we do need to talk.” She pouted, but she knew that wouldn’t absolve her. She could not sweet-talk her way out of this. Over her father’s shoulder, she could see Ezra’s furtive glance. Somehow, she suspected he may have been the one who caused that noise back at home, that he was already alert about her disappearance.

Her father rose to greet the stranger, who seemed impassive. He extended his hand.

“Hey, thanks for looking after my girl. I don’t know what got into her. She’s a troublemaker, but she never scampers off like this.”

“Well, do yourself and her, and me, a favor and don’t let her go wandering so I won’t get stuck with someone else’s kid. I was afraid she was a stray and I’ll get stuck with her for good.”

Ezra was agape. Her grandmother was quivering, eyes glistening. Her father had no notion of their shock, his hand frozen in midair waiting for a handshake. When he glanced back at Ezra and her grandmother, her father seemed baffled by their reaction, but as he absorbed the stranger, his expression melded into something unreadable, his open palm shivered, and his teal eyes widened.

When she looked back to the stranger, he stood stone-faced confounded, his brows crinkling, as if detecting the cryptic shocks of her guardians. His lips folded into irritation.


End file.
